The present invention relates generally to the field of computers and computer systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to publish/subscribe messaging systems providing controlled distribution of messages from a source to one or more targets.
Publish/subscribe is a technique for handling of message queues. Rather than directly identifying an intended recipient for a message, the originator (publisher) publishes the message to a topic, which topic is typically identified in the message header. One or more recipients (subscribers) may then arrange to receive such messages by subscribing to the topic. A message handling or brokering stage sits between the publishers and subscribers, and handles the routing of published messages to subscribers according to topic. In this way, the publisher does not need to know the identities of the various subscribers and the subscribers do not need to know the publisher providing the source of the messages.